Baby Born In Toilet After Midwives Dismiss Mum's Urge To Push

A first-time-mum delivered her baby into a toilet bowl after midwives told her she was not in labour.

Twenty-two-year-old Bethany Kennedy had to drag her baby boy - who was born blue - out of the toilet and says she was 'sure he was going to die'.

Bethany claims nursing staff did not believe her urge to push was anything more than a need to go to the toilet. Baby Harrison was then born into the toilet bowl.

Miss Kennedy has said the events - which happened last February at the King George Hospital in Essex - have put her off having more children:

'Harrison dropped straight into the toilet. His head had even gone under the u-bend of the bowl.

'My son could have died just because they didn't take me seriously. I'm now terrified of giving birth again.'

She added: 'The toilet is opposite the nurses station and the door was open so they would have heard. But none of the staff came. They didn't seem to believe I was giving birth.'

Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust has aologised to Miss Kennedy after she made an official complaint.

The director of women's and children's services at the trust, Carol Drummond, said: 'A first-time mother's cervix usually dilates at less than 1cm an hour and to reduce the risk of infection, examinations are usually not performed more frequently than every four hours.

'Miss Kennedy's cervix dilated far quicker than would be expected, and she delivered her baby in the bathroom.

'We try to ensure that every woman has the best possible experience of labour and childbirth, and are making improvements to our maternity services.'

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Is this kind of thing all too familiar in our maternity departments?

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Bethany isn't the only mum to deliver in the loo - in January, we reported on Sharon Willoughby's bathroom birth.